TOLERANCE OF CAREGIVERS FOR THE BEHAVIORAL PROBLEMS AND PSYCHOLOGICAL SYMPTOMS OF NURSING HOME RESIDENTS (DEVIANCE, MENTAL HEALTH, SOCIETAL REACTION, ELDERLY, MISSOURI).
Contributors: University of California, Irvine.
Published: 1986
Number of pages: 309
Subjects: Gerontology.
Description: The purpose of this investigation was to examine the tolerance of caregivers for the behavioral problems and psychological symptoms of nursing home residents. Based on an analysis of tolerance for deviance literature, alternatives to traditional definitions of "tolerance" and "intolerance" were offered. Further, a hypothetical model of the predictors of intolerant responses was presented.

Questionnaires were administered to 140 nursing home caregivers. The resulting data were analyzed to determine: (a) the psychometric properties of measures based on operationalizing "tolerance" and "intolerance" as a conjunction of caregivers' negative affect and behavioral sanctions toward residents' objectionable behaviors and psychological symptoms and (b) the relationship of several individual- and setting-level factors to caregivers' intolerant responses.

The psychometric data yielded no support for the proposed operationalizations of tolerance and intolerance. Item analyses of participants' dislike and discourage responses yielded four separate measures: Dislike of Behavioral Problems, Dislike of Psychological Symptoms, Discourages Behavioral Problems and Discourages Psychological Symptoms. The internal consistency of all four measures was high; none were related to participants' social desirability responses. However, evidence for the validity of all four scales was equivocal.

All four scales were used as dependent variables in analyses of determinants of intolerant responses. Path analyses lent little support to the hypothesis that daily hassles are related to intolerance and that this relationship is mediated by caregivers' own psychological symptoms. There was insufficient variance among settings to adequately test hypotheses relating the setting-level characteristics of size, patient/staff ratio and policy flexibility to caregivers' negative responses. Incorporating experience-related variables into the path analysis models--and partial correlation analyses conducted within disaggregated groups--yielded some suggestive patterns. The data suggests caregivers' reported behaviors toward residents' behavioral problems may primarily be a function of institutional expectations reinforced through education, training, and prolonged experience in the nursing home setting. By contrast, caregivers' negative affect toward residents' behavioral problems may be influenced by daily stressors and psychological symptoms, but only within certain sub-groups of the nursing home employee population (i.e., among younger employees, nursing assistants and white caregivers). The theoretical and empirical implications of the findings are discussed.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-03, Section: A, page: 1022.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE, 1986.

School code: 0030.